Read Boehner's lips: No new earmarks

Senate Republicans like Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and North Dakota’s John Hoeven long for them.

But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has made clear that they’re never getting back together.

“As long as I’m here, no earmarks,” Boehner said in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. “We are not going back to the nonsense that went on before then.”

The Ohio Republican helped lead the successful effort to ban earmarks–lawmakers’ pet projects dropped in to large spending bills to curry favor back home–in 2010 when House Republicans took control of the U.S. House. Earmark opponents say they encourage wasteful spending and unethical behavior.

While the ban initially enjoyed broad support on Capitol Hill, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and particularly in the U.S. Senate, say the ban has undermined their constitutional prerogative to control the power of the purse. Those decisions are now being made by unelected bureaucrats in government agencies.

“It’s wrong to have bureaucrats downtown make decisions in Nevada that I can make better than they can make,” Reid told reporters last week.

Boehner has an unlikely ally in President Obama, who continues to support the earmark ban. “I disagree, underline, underscore, big exclamation marks, with Obama on earmarks. He’s wrong,” Reid added.

But it looks like as long as Obama and Boehner control tw0-thirds of the decision-making on earmarks, the ban will stay in place. Obama has two more years in office, but Boehner’s future is a matter for debate on Capitol Hill.

On Monday, he appeared at an event hosted by the Chamber of Commerce in San Antonio where he tamped down speculation that he would retire after the midterm elections.